


That Teenage Feeling

by akitsuko



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blow Jobs, First Kiss, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Hand Jobs, Idiots in Love, Jealous John, John is a Mess, John is a Womaniser, Love Confessions, M/M, Oral Sex, Pining John, Sherlock is a Flirt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-27 18:46:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18744925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akitsuko/pseuds/akitsuko
Summary: John, serial monogamist and connoisseur of casual sex, makes it his mission to set up his long-time best friend Sherlock with a good woman (or, at least, a good time).But when he notices Sherlock flirting with men instead, the force of his jealousy takes him by surprise. It's an unexpected stab in the gut when he realises that he wants Sherlock to flirt with him - and he's absolutely not happy to share.





	That Teenage Feeling

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was originally a British comedy RPF that I wrote years ago for a friend's birthday. I have done a bit of editing, and upcycled it into a Johnlock fic. I haven't tagged the 'relations' that John and Sherlock have with OCs because Johnlock is forever the end goal, but be aware that there are explicit descriptions of John's heterosexual arrangements.
> 
> Note that the boys don't share a flat here.
> 
> Disclaimer: I have nothing against Liverpudlian accents; I picked a strong accent at random.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

The flavour of the month is Hayley. She has a surname, of course, but she hasn’t volunteered it so far, and John certainly isn’t going to ask. Surnames make things more permanent.

 

Even first names are more of a practicality than anything else.

 

He props himself up on his elbow, looking at her. She stares up at his badly plastered ceiling and takes a drag on her cigarette. Exhales.

 

And Jesus, John muses to himself, she really is a stunner. Long, dark hair tumbles over her shoulders in waves (it had been clipped back when she arrived ten minutes late at their arranged rendezvous point; however, during the course of their lovemaking it had become so loose that, in frustration, she’d removed the clip and thrown it somewhere on the carpet); her legs are impossibly long and toned; she takes another drag, and her breasts rise with the inhale.

 

John watches, and he knows she can see him even though she isn’t looking. When he reaches out and drags a finger down over her stomach, along the crease of her hip, the responding quiver is almost imperceptible. Just for a moment, the cigarette trembles between her fingers.

 

“When will they start missing you?” he asks.

 

She shrugs. “In a hurry to get rid of me today?” she answers, her tone dry although she’s not as offended as she’s pretending to be, and _there it is _,__  John thinks, congratulating himself on managing not to cringe even slightly. The day they met, he’d clocked her and already made up his mind that he was going to bed her before she opened her mouth and introduced herself in a horrendously strong Liverpudlian accent.

 

So John has spent the last three weeks teaching himself to pretend he doesn’t mind, and most of the time he’s sure he gets away with it.

 

“Don’t panic,” Hayley says. “Just let me finish this, then I’ll go.” She blows a smoke ring at him, and John forces himself to return the cheeky grin she sends him.

 

At least she’s not taking things too seriously, he reminds himself. Which is more than he can say for many of the ‘girlfriends’ he’s had in the past.

 

It’s worth putting up with smoke in his face and a hideous accent for a looker who understands the no-strings rule.

 

\--

 

Sherlock just quirks an eyebrow and looks mildly scandalised when John relays this to him over a pint. Or as scandalised as it’s possible for him to look while the corners of his lips twitch upwards in a smirk.

 

“Your treatment of women is appalling,” he tells him, shoulders shaking with suppressed amusement.

 

John disagrees; the only issues here are Hayley’s chain-smoking and Hayley’s accent. Neither of these things are anything to do with him as a person, and both are everything to do with Hayley. If Sherlock wants to tell someone they’ve got problems, he should tell Hayley.

 

Sherlock’s in no position to give lectures on the treatment of other human beings, anyway. At least John’s actually getting some.

 

“If your comments get back to her,” Sherlock says, “you’re going to have Scousers beating your door down and demanding your kneecaps in apology.”

 

Sherlock is more problem-ridden than John could ever be. It’s obvious, and he’s deflecting.

 

Because Sherlock is witty and brilliant and such an incredibly unique man, even if he is a bit on the lanky side. He’s rich and he’s well-dressed and, to be honest, he could certainly be considered a good catch, even taking his disdain of the general population into account. It doesn’t make sense that, to the best of John’s knowledge, he’s never been romantically involved with a woman before. It’s rare that any women even show an interest in him, despite his striking looks and ability to charm at will. John can’t even remember the last time he demonstrated a flicker of chemistry with anyone. And he knows, because this is the kind of thing they talk about.

 

Correction: the kind of thing _John_  talks about. Sherlock never has anything to contribute.

 

This could mean one of two things.

 

The first is that Sherlock isn’t trying, that he’s has no interest in such things. This is likely; he basically told John as much, early on in their friendship. Mr ‘Married-to-my-Work’. It is utterly perplexing to John; the only time he can ever even _imagine_  losing interest in sex is immediately after an orgasm, and that’s only because he’s usually exhausted and feels rather fulfilled for a few minutes. Like he’s served his purpose. Then, of course, the rush wears off and his pulse slows, and he remembers he can do it again and again until the day he dies.

 

He pictures Sherlock never experiencing or understanding that feeling. He pictures Sherlock wandering around, morose and listless, in his darkened flat, always carrying a large bottle of something very alcoholic. Sherlock’s lack of libido would become a lack of interest in life, and he would be found two weeks later hanging from a homemade noose, discovered by a neighbour who had only come to investigate the bad smell.

 

(It wouldn’t go like that, realistically. Sherlock’s Work is far too important to him, and he has such a single-minded focus on his cases, and he barely ever drinks either because it clouds his reasoning so it’d take him ages to get through a huge bottle, and he’s far too tall to successfully hang himself from his low ceiling.)

 

The second thing it could mean is that Sherlock has something seriously wrong with him that only manifests in the bedroom. About the only thing John hasn’t done with him over the many years of their friendship is have sex with him, so he might have some kind of bizarre disorder that turns him into a raving lunatic in the sack. Perhaps even John would be reluctant to go to bed with women if he had something like that wrong with him.

 

Maybe a disorder, or maybe Sherlock has a fetish that scares all the women off. An image comes to John’s mind of Sherlock and the last girl he remembers being brave enough to approach him (shorter, blonde, magnificent rack); she’s lying naked on a bed while Sherlock has buggered off to the bathroom for a moment. Then he emerges in heavy-duty bondage gear (leather straps, chains, a rubber hood with two tiny breathing holes, a ten-tailed whip and an enormous glass dildo) and stands menacingly at the foot of the bed. The look on the girl’s face is priceless.

 

(And this is also an unlikely scenario. Sherlock may be inexperienced, but John has seen him putting on an act in the name of a case before, and there’s no doubt in his mind that Sherlock would certainly be capable of faking interest with enough oomph to make any woman glassy-eyed and dreamy. Hard to imagine someone like Sherlock suddenly revealing himself to be into the unmentionable.

 

John can’t help but wonder whether women go glassy-eyed and dreamy at the memory of their time with him.)

 

“How long have you been seeing her, anyway?” Sherlock asks him. “A few weeks? Haven’t you normally moved on after a few weeks?”

 

If it wasn’t true, John would be offended at this point. But Sherlock’s far too familiar with this routine. He stares at John over the top of his glass like he wants to burrow through his eyes and into his soul, like he wants to expose him for the womaniser they both know he is.

 

The only reason Hayley’s still around is because she’s so good at being casual, and that’s the fact of the matter. Oh, the irony.

 

John says, petulantly, “When was the last time you got involved with a woman?”

 

Sherlock tells his pint that this isn’t about him and that he has no interest in cobbling together a meaningless relationship anyway; then he looks up and says that this is about John’s issues with commitment.

 

John says, “I don’t think you’re making an effort.”

 

By Sherlock’s reckoning, John needs to find someone who isn’t afraid to put him in his place when he’s being awful. Then his relationships (John prefers to call them ‘things’) might last longer than a few weeks each. Sherlock can remember being positively amazed when John managed to stay with Tasha for over a month

 

John says, “At this rate, you’re going to die alone and sex-deprived. At fifty.” He doesn’t mention that he can’t remember which one Tasha was; pictures of a few different girls spring to mind, and she could have been any one of them.

 

Excepting the current Hayley, they’ve all merged into one huge girl-being. The worst part about that is that he doesn’t feel bad about it at all.

 

“John, we both know I’ll be lucky to make it to fifty.”

 

He goes to the bar, and comes back to their small table with two glasses of water. One of them he downs himself; the other he slides across the table to Sherlock, who looks pointedly at his still-mostly-full half pint.

 

“Get that down you,” John orders. “Sober up, you’re out of control. And I’ve made a decision. We’re going to hit the town right now and make sure you get some. Might lighten you up a bit. I can’t bear another moment of your bitching.”

 

Stoic and piercing John with his gaze, Sherlock drinks his water. But he does look at his watch and raise an eyebrow. “It’s only half past five.”

 

“More time, more chances,” John tells him. “There’ll be loads of women going out for drinks after work, and it’s about time we found you a suitable one.”

 

“Drink?”

 

“Woman.”

 

Oh, Sherlock says. John tells him to get a move on.

 

They leave.

 

\--

 

It’s about nine in the evening and they’re on their third pub and Sherlock has caught the eyes of a few women before John begins to realise what the root of the problem is.

 

It’s crowded; two pretty, young things emerge from the mass of people and ask if they can have the two free seats at the table John and Sherlock managed to grab earlier. Please, John tells them. He smiles at them in a way that has proved effective in the past, and kicks Sherlock under the table.

 

They already have drinks, so John doesn’t offer yet. Conversation, however, inevitably starts, and they introduce themselves as Mia and Jane.

 

The four of them talk about this and that, but John doesn’t contribute as much as he might have done under other circumstances. Not for lack of interest; he’d have either one of these girls (or preferably both) in a heartbeat if the opportunity presented itself. The reason he doesn’t say much is because his objective tonight is not to score. Instead, he pays close attention to how they are behaving, and tries to suss out which one is further up Sherlock’s alley so he can give him a shove in the appropriate direction.

 

He’s not sure Sherlock has much of a type as far as looks go; he’s never noticed any trends. Mia’s hair is dark, straight, razor cut just under her chin, and her smile is sweet despite the fact that she’s obviously caked in foundation. Her very distracting cleavage is making up for that as far as John’s concerned. Jane is taller and very slim, blonde and beautiful in a way that says she could easily have just stepped out of either a modelling agency or a porn film.

 

Sherlock seems to be behaving in exactly the same way towards each of them - that is, largely ignoring them. The unfavourable deductions must be bubbling away impatiently under the surface, reigned in only by a vague desire not to displease John too much. Whenever he does speak, he is curt, blunt, and unfriendly. Just being himself. John is, in equal parts, fond and exasperated. Yet, the two young women have yet to be put off entirely. Mia is leaning forward on her elbows and drawing all eyes down to her chest; Jane twirls her hair and touches her neck with delicate fingers, subtle gestures meant as invitations. The casual observer would take one look at the situation and put money on Sherlock going home with one of them.

 

(John tells himself that he isn’t jealous, and reminds himself that Hayley will be waiting for him tomorrow.)

 

But John is not the casual observer, and he knows that something isn’t quite right. He can’t put his finger on what it is, but it’s causing a tangible barrier between Sherlock and the girls, even moreso than his general attitude and demeanour. Tangible only to him, perhaps, but there’s no doubt in his mind.

 

He should know.

 

Waiting, biding his time while he tries to figure it out, he attempts to manipulate Sherlock into going to the bar and buying the next round when the drinks start to get low, and eventually, grudgingly, Sherlock goes. And if John didn’t have these other gorgeous creatures to entertain in his absence, he’d stare at Sherlock’s back and frown.

 

Because for some reason Sherlock isn’t clicking properly with them, just like he never does with anyone, and he can’t for the life of him understand why not. They’re nice enough, stunningly attractive and clearly interested. Ticks in all the boxes.

 

It’s only because John happens to glance over at Sherlock while he’s ordering that the pieces all seem to slot into place with a sudden, startling clarity. The answer is right in front of him, maybe it has been for years. Maybe he hasn’t found it because he’s been looking in all the wrong places. Everywhere except, arguably, the most obvious. He might as well just tell the girls to go.

 

His answer comes in the form of the barman. He’s probably about twenty seven, more or less Sherlock’s height but with a bit more muscle on him. His hair’s a dark, almost dirty blonde, his eyes partially obscured by a long fringe. Three black bands around one tanned wrist, a silver ring through his bottom lip.

 

And Sherlock is shamelessly flirting with him.

 

Well, John concedes, maybe not shamelessly. The differences between Sherlock flirting and Sherlock having a perfectly normal conversation are very subtle indeed, and many people simply would not notice a change. But John has known him so long that the tiny alterations to his behaviour hit him like a brick in the face.

 

As long as the barman is watching, every single one of Sherlock’s movements is executed with a feline elegance. He arches his back, smiles with an almost predatory glint to his eyes, leans forward across the bar, lets his hand linger as he gives the barman a twenty. They’re talking about something, though John can’t tell what it is from this distance; Sherlock watches the man’s every move. Makes sure he catches his eye as he takes the drinks, and winks before he turns around and comes back to the table.

 

John might be exaggerating the facts a bit, but that’s certainly how it feels to watch. Still, he says nothing as Sherlock sits back down with them, nor as the sexuality Sherlock was exuding only moments before evaporates into something far more guarded and platonic. He still makes eye contact, but it’s definitely not the same.

 

Eyeing the barman again, John can’t see anything particularly special or striking about him. He wonders, quite against his will, how the guy managed to catch Sherlock’ attention so effortlessly.

 

\--

 

It never does come up in discussion between them. For weeks John thinks about it, but adamantly refuses to bring it up. It’s because he knows how awkward the conversation will be. More awkward than anything in the whole history of awkward. And worse still, because all the awkwardness will be on his part; he’ll stammer and blush and say a whole lot of things he knows he doesn’t mean.

 

There will be no awkwardness on Sherlock’s part because Sherlock doesn’t get awkward about anything. He’s far too comfortable in his skin and his behaviour for that; he can justify anything he does, says or thinks without getting even slightly flustered about it.

 

Except if he does that now, it will make John feel even worse, because apart from anything else he should have _known_. Obviously, Sherlock isn’t obliged to tell him anything if he doesn’t want to. That’s the point, though. Sherlock didn’t have to tell him. But that it took him this long to figure out on his own is, to be perfectly frank, embarrassing. He’s always claimed to know Sherlock better than anybody else. How could he have missed something so big?

 

He wonders who else knows. How many other people have either seen for themselves or been told about Sherlock’s leanings towards men. Not that he’ll ever find out because he never intends to ask, but he finds himself hoping that Sherlock hasn’t told anyone in his admittedly small circle of acquaintance. He fears it may kill him if he finds out that Sherlock trusted someone else with that information and not him.

 

Or maybe something a little less extreme than killing him, but the unpleasant sentiment remains.

 

They still go out and have drinks together on Fridays, but the atmosphere has changed despite John’s best efforts to avoid such an occurrence. He will inevitably end up rambling on about something with no relevance to anything else, like a new kettle he bought that refuses to whistle, and Sherlock will give him a look laced with suspicion. As if he’s asking what on earth John is up to. John will carry on anyway, hoping to lift some of the strangeness away from the situation but only making it worse, and Sherlock will shake his head like John is the most peculiar person he’s ever met.

 

One Friday, about a month after the Shifty Barman Incident (because that’s what John has been calling it in his head), Sherlock holds up his hand to cut off John’s rambling.

 

“There’s something wrong with you and I can’t figure out what it is.”

 

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” John contradicts him. “By the way, have you ever been to Kenya?”

 

His change-the-subject method fails.

 

“You’ve stopped trying to set me up,” Sherlock tells him, “and you’ve stopped berating me for not having a different bed partner every month. You talk to me about furniture and all sorts of other nonsense. Something’s going on.”

 

This is the only time John feels tempted to tell him the truth. But, after a moment of indecision, he says, “Don’t ever eat mint and mustard at the same time.”

 

Sherlock just blinks at him over the table.

 

Then, a couple of week later, something happens. Something that seems so tiny and insignificant at the time that John has no idea how catastrophic the whole thing will turn out to be.

 

He’s on his way to meet Sherlock when he gets a phone call.

 

The man on the other end of the line is Bill. John met him at university and their friendship quickly developed into a close one, as they discovered how much they had in common (as well as how much they didn’t have in common, which left enough room for interest and intrigue and prevented them from getting sick of each other). John had very much enjoyed deliberately getting on Bill’s nerves by using incorrect grammar, but Bill always got his own back by making sure John sat on chewing gum, or other such silliness. At the same time, there had been an implicit trust between them, and they had been their own two-person support network whenever anything serious was going on in their lives.

 

The friendship had been such a rewarding one that they never really lost contact. John will keep up with where Bill is and will drop by for a visit a couple of times a year if he remembers when he has a free weekend. Bill will call whenever he’s in town, which isn’t all that often, and insist that they meet for at least an hour or so to catch up.

 

Bill is apparently in town right now, and John doesn’t even think twice about inviting him to join Sherlock and himself at the pub. In fact, John isn’t sure Bill has ever met Sherlock, and although Sherlock is generally averse to meeting new people, John is hopeful that he can manage at least to be tolerant and perhaps even civil for a couple of hours.

 

As it turns out, Sherlock and Bill get on better than any of them had anticipated, bonding over a shared interest in chemistry. John and Sherlock are already at the pub when Bill arrives, looking a little lost until he’s waved over to their table, and within about five minutes of sitting down he’s talking about things with Sherlock that John wouldn’t have dreamed of talking about until he’d known him better. They talk about Sherlock’s cases, and Bill is positively enthralled by Sherlock’s skills in the art of deduction, insisting that Sherlock demonstrate on any unsuspecting punter who happens to catch his eye at the wrong moment.

 

Treating him like some sort of performing monkey, John thinks with an accompanying stab of annoyance. He hates it when Sherlock’s brilliance is reduced to little more than a party trick. He decides that he ought to get up and buy in another round, before he lets himself get too riled up.

 

He places his order and waits at the bar, feeling vaguely unsettled. This is a different pub to the one in which the Shifty Barman Incident occurred, but he recognises the discomfort as the same kind he experienced then, and he eyes the barman currently serving him with suspicion. The barman is apparently oblivious, and serves him the drinks he asked for without so much as batting an eyelid, never mind trying to flirt with him.

 

But that’s not right. Last time, John felt uncomfortable because he didn’t know what was going on. It bothered him that Sherlock wasn’t behaving as he should be, and that he had no idea why. He’s solved that mystery now. He should, therefore, have no reason to feel at all uncomfortable.

 

Besides, Sherlock isn’t hasn’t even spoken to the barman so far this evening.

 

Except…

 

A disturbing thought settles itself in John’s mind, and he has to force himself not to glare daggers at his table as he takes the drinks back. Trying to take stock of the situation, however, without revealing anything with facial expressions, proves to be incredibly challenging.

 

Especially when he realises that, during his brief absence, Sherlock has leaned forward to rest on his elbows, and is maintaining eye contact with Bill throughout the entirety of what appears to be a hugely interesting conversation. Knowing both Sherlock and Bill as well as he does, he’s sure it probably involves something like the factors that can influence the disintegration of human corpses.

 

John is a doctor. He could easily contribute to a conversation like that. But his interest is more clinical and less morbidly curious.

 

The idea floats into his mind that perhaps the conversation includes lots of death-related innuendos, to do with stiffs and the like, and it suddenly becomes an absolute priority that he gets back to the table before anything else can happen.

 

He almost drops the glasses in the process, but he does manage to get back without any major incident. He’s thanked by Bill and eyed warily by Sherlock, and whatever the two were talking about before seems to die a death. The eye contact is kept up by both of them though, as though they’re having a secret conversation without words, but there isn’t a great deal John can do about that without actually mentioning it.

 

(It isn’t until much, much later, after Hayley has been and gone and John is back at home, lying alone in bed with his arms folded behind his head, that he stops to wonder what right he has to be so inexplicably infuriated by the whole situation. He comes to a few conclusions, but he doesn’t care in the least little bit for any of them and does his best to never think about them ever again.)

 

For about an hour John continues to sit there, doing his best to subtly stop Sherlock and Bill getting too cosy and suffering through the feeling that he’s the biggest third wheel in the history of third wheels. It’s ridiculous. They’ve only just met, for God’s sake. And John knows each of them far, far better than they know each other. How is it possible that he’s the one feeling like he shouldn’t be there?

 

He eventually works himself up to such an extent about it that he stands abruptly and mutters something about needing to go home, things to do, people to see. Never mind that it’s pretty late in the evening by this point for doing things and seeing people. He doesn’t give either of them a chance to ask him about it before he leaves them to get on with whatever they fancy.

 

Home, however, is not where he goes, not at first. He stands outside for a few minutes, revelling in the fresh air he hadn’t realised he needed. It clears his head a bit and he realises that he probably acted a bit bizarrely, but he’d feel too much of a fool going back inside. Pride is important. So he roots around in his pocket for his phone instead, and finds that he has a text from Hayley.

__

_Hi. U fancy any company? ;)_

__

She only sent it half an hour ago, so John replies to the effect that yes, he can’t think of anything he’d like more at this moment than some company (some company that won’t completely ignore him, unlike certain other people, he thinks bitterly. Even though that’s unfair because they weren’t really ignoring him, no matter how much it felt like they were). They choose a meeting place and, when John decides he really can’t wait to get to anywhere more private, he shags her up against a tree in one of the darker corners of a nearby park.

 

He can’t remember the last time it felt that good to get it out of his system.

 

\--

 

By the time he wakes up in the morning, he’s decided that he acted like enough of a twat that he needs to call and apologise. So he does, and immediately, because the longer he puts it off, the longer he’ll feel guilty.

 

Sherlock’s phone rings and rings. John bites his lip as he waits.

 

What the hell is he nervous about?

 

It rings and rings and continues to ring, and after what must be a decade the ringing cuts off and he hears Sherlock’s groggy and grumpy voice snapping a short, “Yes?”.

 

Sparing a glance at the clock (he hadn’t done that yet, he was going to leave it until after this phone call, which is far more important than the time), he discovers it’s only just gone nine in the morning. Sherlock keeps strange hours, often refusing to sleep at all for days on end, and opting to spend entire days in bed at other times. He frequently remains unconscious well into the afternoon when he isn’t occupied with a case.

 

John has no idea how long he stayed in the pub with Bill after his own slightly rude departure. Probably for some time, if the depth of their interaction was anything to go by.

 

“Sherlock,” John says. “Did I wake you up?”

 

A groan drifts down the line. “Yes, actually.”

 

There’s a silence. Sherlock is clearly expecting John to lead this conversation, since he’s just been woken up and isn’t quite aware of what’s going on yet, but John’s experiencing what he can only describe as stage-fright, and suddenly doesn’t know how to proceed.

 

After some time (John can picture Sherlock wearing his expectant face and rolling his eyes), Sherlock says, “Was there a reason you called?”

 

That snaps John out of it a bit. “No, you can’t go back to bed. It can’t wait. I need to say that I behaved like a bit of a dick yesterday and I want to apologise.”

 

Nothing like getting straight to the point.

 

There’s a pause. “No more than usual.”

 

John finds himself pissed off that he’s apologising for something that Sherlock apparently didn’t even notice, but on some level he isn’t really surprised. His rudeness may have been slightly uncalled for, but any significant amount of attention Sherlock had on him was gone the moment Bill arrived. Sherlock’s flirting (and Bill’s flirting back, no less) had irked John into being unjustifiably impolite, and now that John feels bad about it, Sherlock claims not to have noticed. It’s almost insulting, in a way. Especially since he also doesn’t seem to have realised that his own behaviour was hurtful.

 

Nothing out of the ordinary there.

 

Probably because John has never taken well to being ignored. He can remember dropping a full milk bottle on the floor once when he was little, deliberately spilling its contents all over the kitchen, because his mother was on the phone and so couldn’t read him a story, or some similar kind of nonsense.

 

However, just as he’s about to launch into a tirade along these lines, he hears some mumbling that sounds too far away from the phone to be Sherlock. Sherlock’s voice, clearer even though it sounds like he’s holding the phone away from his ear, says something back. For one, blissfully ignorant moment, John is merely confused.

 

Then the pieces slot together. He’s overcome with a horrible sick feeling and his mouth goes dry.

 

“You know what?” he manages to say after a pause, the sickness having become much worse in the last two seconds. The confusion has vanished and he’s beyond pissed off. “Forget it,” he says. “You’re clearly busy.”

 

He violently stabs at the button to hang up, and throws his phone in the bin.

 

\--

 

The phone in the bin was a bit too hasty, John decides later when it starts ringing and he needs to go through all the food wrappers and used teabags to find it. But he does manage not to speak to Sherlock for about three weeks.

 

It’s stupid, really; and he knows it. That’s why he doesn’t mention this (one-sided) dispute to anyone he knows, and why he feels incredibly juvenile when it becomes gratifying to deliberately ignore Sherlock’s texts. The first Friday that passes, he sits at home and watches _Extreme Fishing with Robson Green_ and spends the whole evening wondering whether Sherlock went to the pub anyway, hoping that John would show despite their lack of communication.

 

John never does find out whether that happens or not. But he thinks he can safely say that, if it did happen, it wouldn’t have happened again the second week.

 

At the clinic, he becomes grouchier by the day. He snaps at everyone he sees for the slightest little things, including his patients, and finds that he can’t seem to stop, despite the fact that it’s making him feel no better at all. If anything, it’s making him feel worse, because he knows he’s being dreadful and there’s absolutely no justifying it. It doesn’t take long for him to snap at Sarah, the practice manager, who snaps straight back at him and tells him that he needs to get his act together or get out.

 

He gets out. He takes a week’s sick leave, claiming vomiting and diarrhoea, while he’s at it. Apparently he can’t deal with work at the moment.

 

Of course, he soon realises what a mistake that was, because after about half a day at home he thinks he’s going to go stir crazy. Hayley comes over one night, providing her own special brand of company, but he’s unable to think about very much apart from how spectacularly immature he’s being. She does her best, and it’s not her fault that he can’t focus. So, when he heaves a sigh and gets up to stare moodily out of the window, he feels worse than ever. He wasn’t even sure it was possible to feel much worse than he did before, but the knowledge that he’s about to kill someone else’s good mood does the trick.

 

“This isn’t working,” he says. “We should stop.” It’s not the kind of conversation he would usually choose to have without any clothes on, but getting dressed would mean having to turn away from the window and look at her lying on his bed, absolutely stunning and probably upset now because they always are, and he doesn’t think he can face that.

 

But she doesn’t sound upset when she says, “You’re just having a bad day.” Rather, she sounds like she’s not taking him seriously, like it’s all one big game. Then her voice takes on a seductive lilt – or as seductive as it can be with that horrible accent. “Come on. Come here and let me make it all better.”

 

He still doesn’t turn around, but he can hear her moaning softly, and he almost smiles. He can picture her lying back on his bed with her eyes closed, fondling her own breasts and lightly pinching her nipples, lips slightly parted and exaggerating the sounds she makes to tempt him. Then one beautifully manicured hand might drift down until it rests between her legs, just the tip of one finger dipping to rub against her clit at first. She would bite her lip to suppress louder moans (but not completely, because she knows how much it turns John on to hear all the sounds she makes – though she doesn’t know it’s only as long as she doesn’t talk, so she never does in John’s imagination), gradually building up the sensation until she’s stroking herself in earnest, hips rhythmically rising off the bed to meet her fingers.

 

Then there’s an image of Sherlock in his head, laughing at him and telling him he’s an idiot. The almost-smile is wiped off his face, and the real moaning behind him suddenly doesn’t seem to mean anything at all.

 

“I’m serious,” he tells her. “I can’t do it anymore.”

 

She says nothing, but continues to touch herself or whatever it is she’s doing over there. She simply doesn’t believe him.

 

He doesn’t look at her when he picks up his jeans, or when he pulls his t-shirt back over his head. He hopes that’ll help it all to sink in. “Please,” he says. “I’m going for a walk. Don’t be here when I get back.”

 

He leaves to the sound of her gasping with pleasure, but when he gets back over an hour later, it’s as if she was never there at all.

 

\--

 

The next Friday, he’s miserable. Since he took that walk, he hasn’t left the house. Sarah has been phoning him to check up on how he’s doing and when he thinks he’ll be fit to return. He’s had food delivered to his door, either by supermarkets or in the form of takeaways; the bin in his kitchen is currently full of empty plastic containers from the Indian and the Chinese. The kitchen sink is full of plates and bowls and cutlery that he couldn’t be bothered to wash up. There are various food wrappers scattered about the place, but mostly around the sofa and the chairs, from where he’s been eating but didn’t have the energy to get up and throw away the rubbish left over.

 

And he’s personally not in a much better state than the house. He hasn’t showered in a few days so he smells pretty bad, even though he’s wearing clean clothes. Some stubble has appeared around his chin and jaw because he hasn’t seen much point in shaving (even though it’s starting to get itchy). He’s only been making the minimum necessary effort not to get diseases from lack of cleanliness. Even his teeth feel like they’re covered in fur, and there’s dirt under his fingernails. The air around him is stale and used.

 

He’s a disgrace, he thinks to himself as he sits back and idly watches people scream at each other on _Jeremy Kyle._

 

When there’s a knock at the door, he turns his head to look in that general direction then turns back to the television. Whoever it is will not be worth answering the door to. In about thirty seconds, they’ll have assumed he’s either out or dead, and they’ll go about their other business.

 

That thought process takes about half a second, and he promptly forgets that anyone knocked at all. Then, just as the Jeremy starts shouting at one of his male guests about how he shouldn’t be having children without the means to support them, the knocking comes again, only firmer and more insistent.

 

Someone is convinced he’s here. To be fair, John thinks, they’re right, but he doesn’t intend to give them the satisfaction. He turns down the volume a notch, just to make sure his visitor can’t hear it, and goes back to being an ignorant slob.

 

Then the doorbell rings, a sharp, shrill noise that lasts for at least twenty seconds and John decides that he can’t bear another moment of it because it’s giving him a headache on top of everything else. He throws himself up from the sofa, the doorbell still ringing, and stomps through the house as irately as possible, intending to give whoever it is on the other side of the door a piece of his mind.

 

What he’ll say exactly, he’s not sure, because there isn’t a clever way to put ‘do you mind? I’m lonely and miserable and killing myself with poor personal hygiene and I’d rather be left to do it in peace, thank you very much.’ He hopes something better than that will come to him.

 

The ringing stops when he pulls the chain noisily off the latch. Thank goodness for that, John thinks. At least whoever was holding their finger to the button has a little bit of sense. That noise was on the verge of driving him crazy.

 

Which might say something about the state he’s in at the moment, but it’s probably best that he doesn’t think about that.

 

When he opens the door, his tongue is already poised to start spewing whatever it can come up with about how he never wants to see another human being ever again, and he thinks he’s hallucinating when he sees Sherlock on his doorstep with a carrier bag, the contents of which are clinking together very promisingly. It wouldn’t exactly be a shock to his system if he’d reached a stage like that. If anything, he’s surprised he wasn’t there days ago.

 

Real or not, Sherlock doesn’t wait to be invited in, and barges his way past John as if he owns the place. “You smell like a dead horse,” he announces. His voice is exactly how John remembers it, deep and rich, and he goes through to the kitchen with his clinking carrier bag, leaving John to look gormless by the door. “And when was the last time you opened a window?” Sherlock shouts through the house at him. “I’m surprised you’re not fermenting.”

 

John closes the front door and follows the sound of Sherlock’s voice. He stands against the kitchen doorframe and watches Sherlock open every window in sight, before sweeping his arm across the counter to clear some space for contents of his bag – bottles of various alcoholic substances, as John suspected.

 

When Sherlock has finished and has put the carrier bag away in a drawer (where John keeps all his old plastic bags), he turns around and looks John square in the face, pinning him with his sharply perceptive gaze. “Look,” he says. “I’ve given you weeks to get it out of your system. But now you need to stop being a prick and get over it. Whatever __it__  is. Is this about Bill?”

 

That’s always been Sherlock; straight and to the point. No beating about the bush with him.

 

John, on the other hand, has been known to avoid things for as long as possible before he starts blurting out truths. He stays silent and looks at the floor. It’s dirty and could do with a mop.

 

So Sherlock continues. “Ever since then, you’ve had a stick up your arse about something. I refuse to believe there’s no connection.”

 

John rubs one heel against the top of his other foot. “I’d rather not talk about it. If it’s all the same to you.”

 

The fact of the matter is that John has no idea what he could possibly say. All he knows is that Sherlock’s right and he certainly has had a stick up his arse for the last few weeks, but he couldn’t say with any degree of certainty what triggered it. The events concerning Bill definitely have something to do with it, and perhaps even the Shifty Barman Incident does too. But he’s spent his time in solitude doing everything in his power not to think about it, so he’s come to no conclusions and has no way of explaining his behaviour.

 

He’s not sure what gives him the impression that Sherlock might do him the mercy of letting it go, because Sherlock can be like a dog with a bone.

 

So it is somewhat surprising when Sherlock says, “Suit yourself. What do you say to a drink?”

 

\--

 

John hasn’t paid much attention to what he’s been drinking, but whatever Sherlock brought with him was strong. So, even though he’s not had much, he’s pleasantly warm and tipsy and can’t really remember what he’s been so angry about. Looking back on how he’s been, he sees himself as more of a hormonal mess than anything else, and he laughs to himself.

 

Sherlock is sitting next to him on the sofa, a bottle of something else in his hand. He’d taken control of the TV remote long ago and switched over to some black-and-white cowboy film. Something John is confident that he has absolutely no interest in, but at least it’s vaguely distracting. Their sides are pressed together from where they’re sitting so close; they’re both resting their feet up on the coffee table.

 

John hadn’t realised how much he’d missed this companionship, and he’s overjoyed to have it back, even though it was all his own fault that he didn’t have it before. He laughs again.

 

Sherlock laughs too, and elbows him in the ribs. “What’s so funny?”

 

Shaking his head to himself and grinning, John shrugs. “I don’t know. I missed you.”

 

Perhaps not something he’d say under other circumstances, but these aren’t other circumstances. He figures, at the moment, Sherlock’s entitled to know from him whatever he wants to know. It’s the only way he can think of to make up for being such a twat.

 

When he looks up, Sherlock’s got a very smug expression on his face. “You were jealous,” he says.

 

“I was not,” John replies, but it’s automatic, and actually that explanation fits better than any he ever managed to think of. Could he have been jealous? Of Sherlock? Of Bill? Of the Shifty Barman?

 

Perhaps Sherlock sees the thought process in his eyes, because he elbows him again. “You were. You were jealous that I went back to Bill’s hotel with him.”

 

If there was one thing John hadn’t wanted, it was to know any details of that evening, and he feels an almost literal stab to his gut at this information. Before, it had just been speculation on his part. Speculation based on almost indisputable evidence, but speculation nonetheless. Now he knows it for a fact. Sherlock slept with Bill. A curious mix of anger, sadness and possessiveness seeps into his being, and maybe it’s the drink but everything suddenly seems incredibly clear to him.

 

He doesn’t answer Sherlock’s accusation, anyway. So Sherlock, persistent as usual, elbows him one more time, hard enough to have John squirming for a moment. “What I want to know is,” Sherlock says, “who you were jealous of. You were either jealous of me, or you were jealous of Bill. Or you were jealous of both of us because you weren’t getting any yourself, but I find that very difficult to believe. You never have trouble finding… amenable company.”

 

John picks some dirt out from under one of his fingernails. A badly-dubbed cowboy on the screen fires some shots at another cowboy, who cowers behind a hill.

 

“I _said_ ,” Sherlock insists, “who were you jealous of? Me or Bill?”

 

John delays for one more moment to flick away the dirt. Then he says, “Bill. I was jealous of Bill.”

 

The confession is met with a silence that almost kills him, even though it only lasts for a few seconds while Sherlock nods to himself. They watch the cowboys.

 

Then Sherlock says, “Good. I’m glad to hear it.”

 

Sherlock doesn’t say anything else, and the sensible part of John’s brain informs him that it would be best to leave things at that. However, the sensible part of his brain apparently can’t convince the unreasonably curious part of his brain to do the same; he hears himself say, “Why does it matter?”

 

He can’t see it because he’s staring resolutely at the cowboys, but he hears Sherlock laugh at him. “I feel I deserve to have it clear in my mind why you’ve been displeased with me for so long. Especially after I only did what you do all the time. And what you’ve always tried to get me to do, I might add.”

 

“It was different,” John mumbles. “I was only being a prick because I couldn’t figure out why it was different.”

 

“Why _was_  it different?”

 

John opens his mouth, but no words come out so he shuts it again. He knows what he almost said. He tries to justify not saying it, but it doesn’t work, because the only justification he can think of is that he isn’t sure whether it’s true. That’s no good, because knew it was true the moment the thought entered his head. He shifts uncomfortably, though trying to make it as subtle as possible so Sherlock doesn’t notice (futile; Sherlock notices everything), and says instead, “I don’t know.”

 

“That’s false and we both know it.” Even a bit of drink apparently hasn’t made Sherlock any more inclined to take any of his crap. So John breathes a sigh of resignation, takes another swig of his own bottle for courage, and bites the bullet.

 

“It’s like the women never really count,” he says, definitely not looking at Sherlock even though he can feel Sherlock looking at him. “But when it was Bill... when I heard him with you on the phone... I didn’t realise at the time, but I thought it should have been me.”

 

“That’ll be tricky,” says Sherlock, “when you’re running around all over the place being irrational, and jumping on the first woman who so much as looks at you.”

 

John doesn’t even attempt to justify that, because he really can’t beyond maybe sticking his tongue out or something, so he settles for pouting like a petulant child and reiterating, somewhat sulkily, “I can’t bear the thought of you sleeping with any man who isn’t me.”

 

He tries not to blush as he says it but he can’t really help it, especially when Sherlock doesn’t seem to have anything to say in response. The conversation seems to die, much to John’s combined relief and disappointment, and the two of them watch the Western in silence.

 

Fortunately, there’s no discernible change to the atmosphere. It’s as if the conversation had simply been waiting to happen (which in a way, John concedes, it has been), and now that it has, the two of them can get on with their lives as normal. The obstacle has been removed, and they’re left in a companionable mood, closer than they were before and without the overtones of awkwardness which would normally have accompanied a discussion of this nature.

 

That’s pretty lucky, as far as John is concerned; he doesn’t think there are many occasions in life when it’s possible to tell a close friend that you want to sleep with them without any resulting fidgeting or out of place coughing.

 

The alcohol consumption has probably helped there.

 

There’s a gunfight, then there’s a conversation with the sheriff. All the action is just about to kick off again, and John is just starting to actually get into the plot of this film, when he feels Sherlock’s eyes boring holes into the side of his skull. He’s probably been looking for a little while; John has only noticed because he shifted slightly in his space, trying to stop his arse going numb from lack of movement, and he caught the look out of the corner of his eye.

 

At first, he pretends not to have noticed. It seems easier that way. But it turns out that it isn’t, because all of a sudden he doesn’t have the foggiest idea of what’s going on in the Wild West anymore, and he can’t seem to stop blinking, and he shifts again. Then he thinks about it, and realises that he’s probably giving himself away anyway; if Sherlock has been looking at him, he’ll notice the alterations in his behaviour. So he turns his head and looks back at Sherlock, pasting a smile onto his face (which doesn’t turn out to be as difficult as he’d thought it might be).

 

This mutual staring continues for some time; Sherlock doesn’t appear to care that he’s been caught and is showing no sign that he might look away at any point, and John feels a bit stuck now that he’s joined in. He can’t turn away comfortably if he knows Sherlock is looking at him (which he’s sure he will carry on doing), and if he tries, he’s sure he’ll only end up turning back again. It hardly seems worth the effort. On the other hand, he’s getting a bit uncomfortable anyway, because he’s not entirely sure what he’s supposed to be looking at (or for), whereas Sherlock obviously has a reason because he was the one who started it. Whatever he does, John is at a disadvantage.

 

Soon, it seems that Sherlock isn’t looking into his eyes at all, but that his gaze is unfocussed and just staring in general. Every now and again, his eyelids flicker, and it will look like he’s staring at John’s hair, or his cheek, or his mouth. It’s slightly mystifying, and a bit disconcerting, especially since they flicker again with every gunshot that comes out of the TV speakers. John finds himself watching Sherlock’s eyelids, trying to pinpoint any patterns to the movements. Odd, he thinks, as he sits and actually takes him in, that this is the man who has had him in such a state. Reasonably attractive, but there’s nothing particularly special or striking in the way he looks, unless ultra bony fingers or effortlessly perfect teeth can be included in the assessment. He’s bizarre in so many ways (his unprovoked staring is one of many...), mostly unflappable and usually insufferable. Who else would have given John weeks to mope and ‘get it out of his system’ before showing up unannounced, deciding that then was the time for John to grow up a bit, no questions asked?

 

Sherlock is a peculiar specimen indeed, but there’s something about him – John can’t for the life of him put his finger on what it is – that makes him _it._

 

There’s another gunshot and Sherlock’s eyelids flicker again and now he’s definitely staring at John’s mouth. He licks his lips and moves himself so that his whole body, rather than just his face, is turned in John’s direction.

 

In one sudden and breathless moment, John realises where this is going. He wants to do something, start it, or at least contribute, but as soon as the realisation hits him, he finds himself incapable of movement.

 

Fortunately, he doesn’t have to worry, because Sherlock doesn’t give him time to think any further than that; in the same half second that John realises what’s about to happen, it happens. Sherlock leans forward, across the gap between them on the sofa, and kisses him.

 

John sucks in a sharp breath through his nose as a jolt runs down the back of his spine. It’s somehow the most terrifying experience of his entire life, beating almost all of his numerous near-death experiences. Everything he’s ever learned about the art of kissing (and he’s learned a lot in his time) suddenly retreats to an inaccessible part of his brain. He sits, immobilised, as one of Sherlock’s hands comes up to rest against his jaw, and it feels so startlingly intimate that he closes his eyes and an almost inaudible mewl happens in his throat.

 

He realises that he should have closed his eyes in the first place, because it helps him to focus and remember to feel rather than just be afraid, and he realises that, simply though it may be, this is the most pleasant kiss he’s had in a long time.

 

He’s just getting accustomed to that idea – though he hasn’t remembered that he needs to respond, yet - when Sherlock pulls back, breaking the contact as gently and unobtrusively as he initiated it. He stays close for a few seconds, his hand stays on John’s jaw, and John’s eyes slowly drift open. It’s strange, he thinks, to see Sherlock so close to his face in such unforeseen circumstances. He’s been that close before, but it’s never meant anything.

 

Maybe it still doesn’t.

 

(Even _he_ isn’t convinced by that one.)

 

Then Sherlock smiles at him and relaxes back onto his side of the sofa, breaking all contact except where their knees are brushing together. “When was the last time you brushed your teeth?” he asks. “You smell like something has crawled into your mouth and died.”

 

John barks out a laugh. He can’t help it; he feels ever so slightly hysterical. “I’ll sort it,” he says, and gets up, going upstairs without waiting for a reply.

 

\--

 

He does sort it, brushing his teeth over and over for about ten minutes, and his lips are tingling by the time he’s finished. He showers too, figuring that he might as well make a proper effort. It’s not as if he doesn’t need it.

 

And he feels the benefit as soon as he’s turned the water off, scrubbing himself dry with a towel. He can’t smell himself anymore, which is certainly a good start. He shaves while he’s in the bathroom as well, because he catches sight of himself in the mirror, and realises that there’s nothing attractive in the hobo-tramp look he’s got going on at the moment.

 

Some deodorant and clean clothes later, he deems himself acceptable for company, and finds himself with nothing left to distract himself. Sherlock is still downstairs, pottering about and doing something or other because John can hear the sounds, and John’s fear hasn’t diminished even a little bit since he abruptly excused himself. If anything, it’s only settled more firmly in his gut, and it’s making him feel a bit sick.

 

It’s always possible that he’s panicking over nothing, he supposes; but Sherlock just kissed him and they both enjoyed it (dead animal smells aside) and that doesn’t seem like nothing to him. It seems like a very big something that needs to be dealt with instead. The problem is that John doesn’t have the first clue how to go about dealing with it.

 

Before he really knows what’s happening, he finds himself at the bottom of the stairs, and he still doesn’t know what to do.

 

It isn’t fair; he’s never this nervous. Even when he was about fourteen and he’d just discovered that girls could actually be quite fit when they weren’t being ridiculously girly and full of the lurgy, he didn’t get in a state over his words or panic himself into a frenzy wondering how he was supposed to behave. It all came very naturally to him, and he was always the one wondering what all the fuss was about. Relationships (or ‘things’) were easy; he’s never encountered difficulty in establishing one.

 

Now, he’s bitterly regretting how he missed out; he could do with a bit of experience in this area. He doesn’t know how to handle it. And he certainly doesn’t appreciate how Sherlock is making him feel how he should have felt when he was fourteen, especially since he’s definitely not that young anymore.

 

He blurts out, “I hate you, sometimes,” when he gets to the doorway to the kitchen and discovers Sherlock doing some of his washing up. His jaw almost drops; he’s not sure that Sherlock has ever cleaned a plate before in his life.

 

Sherlock doesn’t have the common decency to turn around, or even appear to be taking him seriously, when he replies, “I beg your pardon?”

 

John says, “You’re making me feel like a teenager.”

 

Sherlock doesn’t make a sound, but his shoulders are shaking with obvious mirth. Then he takes his hands out of the sink, wipes them dry on his trousers, and crosses the short distance across the room so he’s standing directly in front of John. He stays there and they stare, and neither of them move, and John gets more nervous by the second. It’s all he can do not to fidget on his feet.

 

“I’d apologise,” says Sherlock, “but I’m not sorry.”

 

John tells him that’s hardly a surprise.

 

Sherlock’s gaze drops to his mouth again; he makes no attempt to hide it. “You have no idea what you do to me,” he says, his voice dropping an octave. “It’s only fair.”

 

There’s a moment of hesitation on John’s part, because he’s not sure whether he’ll be welcome. Then he decides sod it, because it’s Sherlock’s fault that he’s feeling like this in the first place, and he’s not even slightly repentant about it, so he deserves everything he gets.

 

He takes one step forward, minimising the distance between them. But then he hesitates again, just long enough for Sherlock to take a breath and say, “You smell a lot better now.”

 

John takes Sherlock’s face in his hands, just to make sure he doesn’t go anywhere, and kisses him.

 

It’s similar to the first kiss in that it’s chaste and they barely move, but it lingers, and John’s more aware of what’s happening and what he’s supposed to be doing this time – though, admittedly, not by much. He feels Sherlock’s breath against his face, presses his fingers against a man’s skin with a certain amount of curiosity. It’s different to every other kiss he’s had, and it takes him a moment to figure out why.

 

It’s because he’s not feeling a pressured need to impress. There’s not a single part of his mind engaged with how to improve his technique. Of course. Only Sherlock could make him regress back to teenage years of flustered nerves, and at the same time relax him beyond the realm of possibility.

 

His movements, however minimal, become firmer as soon as he realises. He slides his hands forwards until he feels Sherlock’s hair tickling his fingertips, tilts his head to get a better angle, takes one more step so that he can feel Sherlock’s body heat. It makes him dizzy within seconds; and when Sherlock’s hands are placed tentatively on his waist, he feels as though his legs might give way.

 

Their shy, exploratory style lasts only as long as can be expected between two people who are very much attracted to each other. Soon John feels something warm and wet against his bottom lip, and he belatedly realises that it’s Sherlock’s tongue. The next time he feels it, he meets it with his own in what he feels is rather a bold move – but it all works out, because then they’re kissing in earnest, and John doesn’t think he’s ever felt anything so addictive in all his life.

 

He tangles his fingers in Sherlock’s hair, cradling the back of his skull. He feels Sherlock’s arms wrapping around him, his hands on his back through his shirt, pulling him closer until they’re pressed together all the way down to the hips, and their legs end up entwined in such a way that they’re at serious risk of tripping each other up and toppling over. And Sherlock makes a sound – something guttural and filthy – that has John’s eyes snapping open; he needs to hear that again, he’s sure his life depends on it.

 

He spares a thought for how strange it is that Sherlock has been under his nose for practically his whole life, and he’s only just realising how much he needs him. Because there’s no doubt in his mind that this is what his life has been missing. He just doesn’t understand how he’s managed to ignore it for so long.

 

Then his eyes focus – just for a second – and he catches the close-up of Sherlock’s expression, caught somewhere between desperation and sheer bliss. John reckons he knows just how he feels, and closes his eyes again.

 

They end up on the sofa because they’re too frantic to manage the stairs. It’s too short and it’s certainly not ideal, but it’s the best they can do under the circumstances. And, to be fair, John does try to voice an objection; when Sherlock backs him up against it and presses wet, hasty kisses along his jaw, John mumbles, “I do have a bed...”

 

But Sherlock says against his skin, “Next time. Right now, I can’t wait long enough to get there.”

 

Any other objections John has promptly die in his throat, and he lets himself melt under Sherlock’s touch.

 

And he soon begins to regret, bitterly, that they’ve spent so long ignoring and side-stepping around this obvious connection between them. Sherlock takes control but he’s not overly aggressive about it. He lets everything come naturally and doesn’t force it; his fingers only start on the buttons of John’s shirt when John starts thinking he might die if he doesn’t feel Sherlock’s skin against his right now. For a moment, he thinks Sherlock might be a mind reader; then he remembers just how well Sherlock knows him, and he relaxes again.

 

Soon John is lying as best he can on his back, and Sherlock is draped on top of him. It’s cramped and a bit uncomfortable but John can feel Sherlock against him, wanting him, and he can’t think of anywhere he’d rather be. They writhe and move together in the small space; both of their shirts are on the floor now, and John’s skin is burning wherever Sherlock touches it. His hands are everywhere all at once – in his hair, stroking his face, holding his arms, dragging down his torso – and it’s so overwhelming that John feels drunk, and their never-ending kiss is at the same time keeping him grounded and making him light-headed. He can’t get enough of the way Sherlock tastes; every time Sherlock breaks away to kiss his face or his neck, John pulls him back again, feeling appallingly deprived and empty all too soon.

 

It’s obvious where all this is going (even if it wasn’t, Sherlock makes it so by brushing the backs of his knuckles deliberately across John’s crotch), and John is surprised to find that, when he thinks about it, he’s not nearly as nervous as he was at first. He supposes that now the idea has had time to settle in, and he’s got a bit more used to it, and he’s had a chance to affirm that this really is what he wants. Which it is; he can’t imagine wanting anything else, ever.

 

Sherlock starts rubbing him through his jeans, and he’s so hard it almost hurts, and he thrusts up against Sherlock’s hand without thinking about it. The friction is so close to perfect, and at the same time not nearly enough. He feels desperate with want and need, which is something he hasn’t experienced for a long time. This is already better than anything he’s done with any woman he can remember, and they’re still half dressed. They create a rhythm, Sherlock’s hand moving steadily and confidently, John rising to meet him almost mindlessly every time; their messy kiss continues through it all, and John can only think that he _wants_. His arms are around Sherlock’s back, holding him as close as possible. He needs as much contact as he can get.

 

Then Sherlock breaks the kiss again, but he doesn’t go far; he presses their foreheads together, and their lips are still almost touching. He looks absolutely wrecked, breathing heavily with swollen lips, and John feels his cock twitch just as the sight.

 

“Please,” Sherlock gasps, squeezing him through his jeans. “Let me, please...”

 

John arches up, seeking with his mouth, and initiates the kiss again. It’s all he can do. And Sherlock understands, because Sherlock understands everything. It’s permission and it’s desire and it’s begging all at once. Sherlock moans into his mouth (which only makes John moan back, because that sound is turning him on like nobody’s business), and his fingers blindly fumble with the fastenings on John’s jeans. It takes longer than it should, but eventually the jeans and trousers are discarded on the floor, and John’s whole body is at the mercy of Sherlock’s gaze and touch.

 

John isn’t shy; he has never been shy. But even he struggles not to squirm under the intensity of Sherlock’s expression, drinking in every detail and looking lost like he simply does not know where to start.

 

After what must be all of eternity, Sherlock strokes his fingers up and down John’s thighs. Slowly, like he’s experimenting. He scratches his nails lightly across from one side of John’s hips to the other. He leans down to kiss his belly button, his fingers curling around the back of his buttocks, and his tongue darts out to lick a stripe along his skin. It’s teasing and on the verge of unbearable, and it carries on far too long for John’s liking; soon he loses track of time and fears he’s in danger of literally exploding with tension and arousal. But, once again, Sherlock reads his mind, and chooses that exact moment to stop messing around. He takes one last deep breath, apparently inhaling the smell of John’s skin (John’s so glad that he decided to take that shower), before licking his lips and wrapping them around the head of John’s cock.

 

Despite everything – that he knew it was about to happen and that he was mentally prepared for it – John almost arches all the way off the sofa. Something so tentative and relatively unremarkable shouldn’t feel so good. It shouldn’t be possible. But apparently it is possible and it does feel that good; Sherlock the superhuman has done it again. And it doesn’t stop there, because Sherlock just sinks deeper and deeper and deeper still, until all John can feel is the heat of his mouth and the undulation of his tongue, and his eyes are rolling back in his head.

 

His fingers find their way back into Sherlock’s hair, not to push him or guide him but just for something to hold on to. This is... he can’t find the words to describe it. There probably aren’t any that do it justice. He’s always loved it when his girlfriends have gone down on him in the past, but this is something else. It’s in a different category, a different league altogether. Sherlock seems to know instinctively how to move, when it’s too much and when it’s not enough, how he should angle himself and what the pace should be. It’s as if this was what his mouth was designed for.

 

(It probably wasn’t, of course. And somewhere in the back of John’s muddled brain is the thought that the look Sherlock was giving him before – the hungry, wanting, gorgeous one – probably has something to do with how good it is. No one’s looked at him with that level of mingled lust and sincerity before.)

 

After a few minutes, John feels himself crossing the point of no return; and he finds it in himself to be disappointed, because he’d rather hoped this would last longer. If he had his way, he would revel in it for the rest of his life and never bother with anything else. But that can’t be done, unfortunately; and, really, he knew this was never going to last for as long as he’d have liked. Something this good _can’t_  last for that long; it would contradict its own nature.

 

He tries to warn Sherlock. His words come out of his mouth as a series of broken and incoherent vowel sounds. He tugs on Sherlock’s hair, but Sherlock simply flicks him a glance and renews his efforts. So John resigns himself and lets himself go, remembering Sherlock’s promise of ‘next time’, and he comes down Sherlock’s throat with the sound of those moans in his ears. He’s sure he shouts something but he’s not really paying attention; all he’s really aware of is everything to do with Sherlock, and the most mind-blowing orgasm that must have ever happened, giving him full body shudders and arching his back and sending sparks shooting behind his eyes.

 

When he comes to (because after something like that, he would be incredibly surprised if he wasn’t completely out of it for at least a few seconds), Sherlock’s head is resting on his thigh and his trousers are shoved down around his ankles. One hand is holding his weight up on the edge of the sofa, his fingertips skimming John’s waist, and the other is a blur around his own erection as he furiously works to get himself off.

 

It’s one of the sexiest things John thinks he’s ever seen, but it hardly seems right. He engages his somewhat useless limbs again, manages to somehow drag Sherlock upwards to kiss him briefly and sloppily on the mouth, then reaches down between them to displace Sherlock’s hand with his own.

 

It’s more shocking than he’d thought it would be; the set of motions are so familiar, but it’s simultaneously unreal and a little disconcerting. The disconcerting bit, of course, disappears immediately when Sherlock makes another one of those amazing sounds. And he realises Sherlock is closer than he thought when Sherlock makes stuttering, unsteady grabs for whatever parts of John’s body he can reach, keeping his eyes closed, relying entirely on his sense of touch. It must work for him, because soon John feels a wet stickiness on his stomach, and Sherlock is choking off gasps, clinging to John like a lifeline and eventually collapsing on top of him, trying to catch his breath.

 

John holds onto him and stares up at the ceiling, idly running his fingers up and down his back. After a bit of silent musing, Sherlock lifts his head up (apparently with a great deal of effort) and kisses him. It’s back to the gentleness of earlier, all of their immediate energy having been spent, and John is relieved to note that it’s no less pleasant like he’d feared it might be. They kiss languidly, unhurried and savouring every moment, until Sherlock decides that he just can’t hold his own weight up anymore, and he flops back down with a sigh to pillow his head on John’s chest.

 

“I wasn’t going to do that,” he says. It sounds a bit croaky, so he clears his throat after he says it.

 

John blinks a couple of times, but can’t think of anything he can say to that, so he prods Sherlock in the side until he elaborates.

 

“I wanted to let you think about it first,” he continues three prods later. “I wanted you to want it.”

 

John laughs as best he can with Sherlock’s weight on top of him. “You don’t understand.”

 

But Sherlock lifts himself up again, so he can look John in the eyes, and John knows he’s serious. “I won’t be a conquest.”

 

At first, John is shocked, and he says, “Is that really what you think of me?” Then Sherlock shoots him a look, and John has to admit that he would probably be quite justified if he did think something of the sort. “You’re not a conquest,” he confirms. “You’re...” he searches for the right word, “...it.”

 

It’s not the right word, but it’s appropriate enough and it’ll have to do for the time being.

 

“I’m ‘it’?”

 

John nods. Even with Sherlock’s body heat, he’s starting to get chilly lying naked in his living room, and he fights the urge to shiver, wrapping his arms tight around Sherlock’s back to get as much of his warmth as possible.

 

“Alright,” Sherlock eventually answers, lying down again. “’It’ I can live with. But we’re going to have to try and think of a better way to put it.”

 

John agrees. In fact, he’s already thought of a better way of putting it. Sherlock is ‘the one’. That perfect person he’s spent his whole life not realising he needed. But he thinks that might make him sound a bit too sentimental, too soon, so he keeps it to himself, and just says, “I’m sure we can come up with something. We’re good like that.”

 

“As long as it’s nothing insulting,” Sherlock murmurs against his chest.

 

“Like ‘the woman of my dreams’?”

 

“Exactly.”

 

John laughs to himself, saying again, “We’ll come up with something.”

 

Sherlock prods the sole of John’s foot with one of his toes. John brings one hand up to scratch lightly at the back of Sherlock’s neck, occasionally tugging at the hair there; Sherlock swats aimlessly back at him in a half-hearted gesture of war. So John does it again; and this time when Sherlock swats at him, John grabs his wrist in mid air, presses a kiss to it, then lets go again.

 

He’ll let Sherlock come up with something.

**Author's Note:**

> No bad vibes, please.


End file.
